secretary kerry will personally urge the shiite led government to give more power to political opponents before sunni insurgency seizes more control of the country. to keeplitants captured border posts yesterday along the frontier with jordan and the other along the frontier with syria. the u.s. house is back today at noon eastern for general speeches and seven bills at 2:00 . after the votes the debate begins on the bill to reauthorize the commodity futures trading commission through 2018. the senate meet at 2:00 eastern for general speeches and at 5:30 they will vote on judicial nominations. watch the live coverage of the house here and the senate on c-span two. president obama participates today in the white house working families summit, bringing attention to issues like paid leave and flexibility with work hours. c-span3 has that live coverage. missouri senator claire mccaskill holds a forum on campus sexual assault as part of

a continuing series of roundtable discussions on the issue hosted by the democratic lawmaker. c-span3 has live coverage at 2:30 eastern, you can comment on facebook and twitter. >> now you can keep in touch with current events from the nation's capital using any phone, anytime. call 202, six to six, 8888 two-year congressional coverage, public affairs forms, and today's "washington journal." you can also hear audio of the publictwork sunday affairs programs beginning sunday at noon eastern. 202-626-8888. long distance charges may apply. >> maryland governor martin o'malley, considering a presidential run in 2016, he was

the keynote speaker at this iowa democratic convention in des moines. the state holds the first presidential caucuses. his comments were about half an hour. >> please join me in welcoming the governor of the great state of maryland, martin o'malley. >> thank you. thank you. [applause] thank you, iowa. thank you very, very much. i want to begin by thanking you for your indulgence and watching that little introductory video and my apologies to those who thought were you settling in for the next episode of "the wire." [laughter] it's wonderful to be here in des moines, to be with so many great friends in iowa. turn to your neighbor and tell them iowa is moving forward. go ahead.

do it. turn to your other neighbor and tell them we need a fresh start. you guys have one of the most outstanding democratic parties in the united states of america. and thank you, scott brennan, for your great work. [applause] scott does an outstanding job as your chair. and scott, i want to thank you for your leadership. i think that you understand better than most that in order for any of us as public servants to govern well, we need the democratic party getting stronger every day. and that's what you're doing in iowa. [applause] to create jobs, to strengthen our middle class, to give our children a better future. with scott's leadership and the hard work of all of you in this room, we are going to give iowa a fresh start by electing jack hatch the next governor of iowa.

[applause] jack, i'm looking forward to campaigning with you today. you represent that sort of problem solving. you and monica. that sort of problem solving leadership that every state needs. we need a governor who's on the side of the middle class families of iowa. their needs and their aspirations. i think the people of iowa have had enough of the branstad administrations. don't you? [applause] my goodness. five terms is enough, don't we think? it's time for a fresh start. and it's time to turn the page on cronyism. and elect a governor who's going to put the needs of iowa's

middle class families first every single day he goes to work. and jack hatch is that leader. jack hatch and monica vernon are going to move your state forward. but they're going to need partners. so let's make sure that mark smith is the next speaker of the house of iowa. let's help senators gronstal and yokum keep the senate with democratic leadership moving forward. and we're going to re-elect dave loebsack to congress, aren't we? [applause] and we are going to send the congress patrick murphy, aren't we? and whoever the republicans figure out they want to put up, we are going to elect staci appel to congress, aren't we? and break that glass ceiling? and we're going to beat steve king and elect fighting jim mauer the next congressman from iowa's fourth. now i'm sure also on your mind, especially given the outstanding service that came to our country from your united states senator tom harkin that you have an

important u.s. senate race here, don't you, this year? yes, indeed you do. and there couldn't be a bigger contrast than the choices of the people of iowa are going to be presented in bruce braley and joni ernst. bruce braley's cause is the cause of a stronger middle class in iowa. greater opportunity. an iowa where everyone's included. and where everyone is needed and where we help each other in order to move forward. now, joni ernst wants to privatize social security. she wants to turn the medicare into a voucher system. she wants to repeal the federal minimum wage. now, how is any of that going to help strengthen middle class opportunity and middle class families in iowa? she even wants to roll back the clean water act and eliminate

the department of education. how much less schooling do you think would be good for our kids, joni? can you imagine someone with those sorts of extreme views holding the seat that tom harkin so ably filled on your behalf all of these years? look, from education to agriculture, to his unflagging commitment to the sick, to the poor, to the voiceless, senator harkin's success can be measured by the millions of american lives that he has touched and that he has made better. and iowa and indeed the entire country will be forever blessed

because of tom harkin's great service. [applause] and i know tom and ruth would join me when i say -- you want to know what sort of lasting tribute you can give to tom harkin? you want to know what sort of tribute you can give to him and to ruth after the thank you parties and the thank you dinners are done? the best tribute you can give to tom harkin's work is to elect bruce braley your next united states senator. [cheers and applause] it's all about the beliefs we share, isn't it? about our belief in the dignity

of every individual. about our own responsibility to advance the common good. and that's what i want to talk with you about today. i want to talk with you about the story of us. the ongoing story of us. the story of baltimore and iowa, the story of maryland, and america. when i was elected mayor of baltimore in 1999, my city had become by that year the most violent, addicted and abandoned city in america. and there was a big difference in those days between the baltimore that we carried in our hearts and the baltimore that we saw on our streets and the baltimore that we saw on our headlines. and our biggest enemy wasn't drug dealers or crack cocaine. it was in essence a lack of belief. a culture of failure. countless excuses about how

nothing would work. and why none of us should even bother to try. and so we set out to make our city work again. we saw trash in our streets and alleys. so we picked it up. every day. we saw open air drug markets, and we began to relentlessly close them down. we saw neighbors suffering from addiction so we expanded drug treatment, and we got more of our neighbors into recovery. and after a year -- [applause] and after a year of hard-earned, life saving, steady progress we turned a bright light on the heart of the despair that had gripped our city for too long. and we launched a campaign on television that we called simply "believe."

the first ad was a four-minute commercial, which the local news affiliates agreed to air simultaneously. and as a viewer you walk through a day in the life of a 10-year-old african-american boy. it starts out with him warming his hands at a corner fire with a homeless man on an abandoned corner. dodging drug dealers and their suburban buyers, stepping around hypodermic needles and prostitutes. ultimately seeking out his little sister in the night who had gone to the store to buy candy. and he finds her in the center of a crowd of grief-stricken neighbors, paramedics and police, another young victim of

drug dealer crossfire. killed in a drive-by shooting. her tightly braided hair, her lifeless eyes, wide open, lying in a pool of blood. the narrator's voice says the people of baltimore are in a fight. it's a fight for their future. it's a fight that we've been losing one life at a time. he continues. there are some who say it's over. give up. we've lost. but for the strong, for the brave, this fight is not over. what will it take to make us stand together and say enough? and then come the stark white on black words, believe. believe in us. believe in yourself. baltimore, believe. now, for three very uncomfortable and painful weeks, we ran those ads. and we had to be honest about

our present in order to change our future. we then ran ads calling upon our people to take real individual actions. to step up, mentor a child and an hour a week can save a live. call 1-800-believe. join the police department. believe in yourself. believe in us. call 1-800-believe. get someone you love into drug treatment. it works and there's more of it. call 1-800-believe. and you know what? it did work. the people of baltimore rallied. and of course it wasn't about the bumper stickers or the signs, was it? it was about something deeper. the belief that there is no such thing as a spare american.

over the next 10 years, baltimore went on to achieve the biggest reduction in part one crime of any major city in america. now, why do i share that story with you today? because we must acknowledge where we are together in order to move forward together. because belief is important. belief drives action. and today, like baltimore in 1999, we as americans are going through a cynical time of disbelief, aren't we? a time with more excuses than action. more ideology than cooperation. more fear and anger oftentimes than progress. we seem to have lost, haven't we, that shared conviction we once had that we actually have the ability to make things better together. and there is today in our country a big difference between

the america that we carry in our hearts and the america that we're seeing in our headlines. the america in our hearts is that land where those who work hard, who play by the rules, who get up early in the morning, can make a better future for their kids and their family. and the america in our headlines is too often a place where wall street profits are higher than ever, the rich are richer than ever, but the paychecks of hard-working families are becoming smaller and smaller. the america in our hearts -- [applause] the america in our hearts remains that nation that created the greatest middle class in the history of the world. but the america in our headlines is the nation where too many kids can't afford to go to college and too many college graduates can't find a job.

and all of this, my friends, reminds me of the story of the prize fighter who has been in the ring and he's beaten against the ropes. he's getting the worst of it. pounded down by his opponent time and time again. and finally his trainer gets a chance to sit him down in the corner. and he says to him as he looks him in the eye, the problem isn't what the other guy doing to you -- the problem is what you're not doing for yourself. whether we think we can or we think we can't, we are probably right. and i don't know about you, but i've had enough of the cynicism, i've had enough of the apathy, i've had enough of us giving into self-pity, small solutions, and low expectations of one another. [applause] so let's remember who we are, shall we? for 235 years, we have been the country that thrilled the world. that led the world.

over and over again in large part by making ourselves stronger at home. don't you think it's time we do it again? [applause] the patriots who made america great, they didn't pray for their president to fail. they prayed for their president to succeed. [applause] and our founders didn't belittle science. they didn't belittle learning. they aspired to it. they didn't appeal to america's fears. they inspired american courage. and they would never, ever abandon the war on poverty in order to declare a war on women, a war on workers, a war on immigrants, a war on the sick, or a war on hungry children. [applause] what was true for our parents and grandparents remains true today. america is the greatest job generating, opportunity-expanding nation ever created in the history of the free world. but america cannot serve our children's needs, cannot serve our children's future well if our republican brothers and

sisters in congress keep shutting us down and selling our country short. [applause] as democrats, as americans, we have an urgent responsibility today. it's about jobs, it's about a stronger middle class, and it's about giving our children a better future now. the truth is after hoover, america needed roosevelt. after eisenhower we needed kennedy. after reagan we needed clinton. and after eight miserable years of george w. bush, america needed barack obama. [applause] no president, no president since f.d.r. inherited a worse economy, bigger jobs losses, as many wars or as large a deficit as president obama did. thanks to his leadership, thanks to the leadership of tom harkin and congressional democrats, america is moving forward again. get this. this month, was our 51st month -- in case anybody still keeping count -- of positive monthly job creation in the united states of america. [applause] in fact, it was the fourth month in a row, i think, that we actually had more than 200,000 jobs created. there were 217,000 jobs created last month, but urgent work remains to be done. and the cynical few who have

hacked our democracy are digging in. yes, these tea party republicans -- funded by their wealthy economic royalist friends like the koch brothers -- they see america as a small, small place, don't they? they see us as a business in decline. they look at america as a place of limited potential and limited capacity. a place that can -- a place that can only afford to serve the interests of the privileged few. and we've seen this view before, haven't we? hoover called it supply side economics. reagan called it trickle down economics. george w. bush called it focusing on my base. [laughter] [applause] now, whatever they call it, it will not give our children a better future. a more prosperous future with more jobs and more opportunity for all. to those who would prescribe

this future of less for america's middle class, we must ask the very real question -- how much less do you think would be good for our country? think about it. how much less education will make our children smarter? how many fewer college degrees will make our economy more competitive? how many hungry american children can we no longer afford to feed? think about your parents and grandparents for a second. picture their faces. they understood the essential truth of our american dream. the stronger we make our country, the more she gives back to us, to our children, and to our grandchildren. we will not solve our problems by doing less. we must do more. in maryland, we have chosen to do more. we have answered our president's call to create new jobs and new industries. to build a modern economy. an economy with a human purpose. we've done more rather than less to improve our children's education. more rather than less to rebuild

our infrastructure and create jobs. more to make college opportunity more widely available to more families. you see like you, we believe that the foundation of any growing economy is a stronger middle class. therefore, we increased the earned income tax credit. not once but twice. we became the first state in the nation to pass a living wage. and just a few weeks ago, thank you, tom harkin, for your leadership, we increased the minimum wage in maryland to $10.10 an hour. [applause]

now why did we choose to do these things? why did we choose to do these things? because when workers earn more money, businesses have more customers, and our whole economy grows. this is called common sense economics. a thriving economy, a thriving economy, a growing economy is built from the middle out and the middle up. prosperity doesn't trickle down, and it never has. a stronger middle class is not the consequence of economic growth. a stronger middle class is the cause of all economic growth! [applause]

and the proof is in the results. the proof is in the results. maryland's creating jobs at the second fastest rate of any state in our region. about 9,000 over just the last two months. not only do our people now earn the highest median income in the nation, but we're also rated one of the top states for upward economic mobility. and just last week, the united states' chamber of commerce, hardly a mouthpiece for the maryland democratic party, for the third year in a row, named us the number one state in america for innovation and entrepreneurship. [applause] but progress is also about creating a more just and a more inclusive and a more secure future for our kids, isn't it? with the belief in the dignity of every individual, we expanded and protected collective

bargaining rights in maryland. [applause] and we don't belittle our teachers. we support them. we partner with them. and with the belief in the dignity of every child's full potential, we passed the dream act in maryland. and we enjoyed passing it so much that when our republican brothers and sisters sent it to referendum, the people of our state passed it again, with 58% of the vote. and together, with the belief in the dignity of every individual, we passed marriage equality in the state of maryland. [cheers & applause] together, we've driven crime down to 30-year lows in maryland. and we passed important gun safety legislation that focuses on school safety, mental health,

and background checks for handgun purchases. [applause] and because climate change is real, we expanded renewable energy, accelerated energy conservation, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. progress is a choice. we do not move forward by chance. hope drives belief. belief drives action. and action achieves results. final story. final story. i am joined here in your great state by my 16-year-old son, william o'malley. and when william was 9 years

old, and my wife and i have four children, two boys, two girls, rich people couldn't do better -- [laughter] when william was 9 years old, when william was 9 years old, i was at home and together we were watching a history channel special about rosa parks. civil rights. and the montgomery bus boycott. and as william watched the story he turned to me and said "hey, dad, back then," by which he meant sometime between the extinction of the dinosaur and the arrival of the eight-track tape, he said, "dad, back then,

somebody actually told you that some of you had to ride in the front of the bus and some of you had to ride in the back of the bus? and you guys actually listened?" [laughter] and i said, "well, william, i know it's hard to imagine, son. but that's just the way it had always been." and then he turned to me, with that clear wisdom of youth, and he said "dad, didn't you guys realize that you were all going to the same place?" [laughter & applause] oh, yes. the truth is we are all going to the same place. we are all on the same bus. iowa and maryland, california and mississippi, and we will move forward or we will slip back together. we will succeed or we will fail together. and we will rise or fall together. and this is not a matter, my

friends, of wishing or hoping. it's a matter of belief. it's a matter of action. we are americans. and we make our own destiny. and we will not be the first generation to give our children a country of less. and it means that iowa must stand up. it means that maryland must stand up. it means that each of us must stand up. and it only takes one person, and then another, and then another, to stand up and say enough. enough obstruction. enough wasted time. stop selling our country short. let us achieve like americans again. let us lead like americans again. and let us believe in americans again. in ourselves, in our nation, and in one another. together we can, together we will, and together we must! thank you, iowa! on to victory! on to november! on to a stronger country for our kids! thanks a lot. [applause]

>> "national journal" is reporting that burwell is reorganizing the health care law management. she has been on the job for two weeks. reportedly creating two new positions to oversee the insurance exchanges. republican senators say they are concerned about the links -- whereill to do is the new hires are coming from. and 6:30.:00 after the votes, a bill to reauthorize the commodity futures trading commission through 2018. the senate meets at 2:00 eastern for general speeches and they will vote on judicial

nominations. live coverage of the house is here in the senate on c-span two. president obama participates today in the white house working families summit, bringing attention is -- attention to issues like paid leave and flexibility in working hours. we will have live coverage. claire mccaskill holds a forum ,n campus sexual assaults hosted by the democratic lawmaker. .-span3 has that live for you you can comment on facebook and h tager using the #-- has c-span chat. >> religion is a powerful mechanism. who is us, who is them. who is my group, who is the them that? religion answers question easily. if you pray like me, eat like

me, go to the same church that i do, you are us. them. don't, you are you can see how that mindset could very easily lead to extremism, to marginalization. as i remind people, religion may be the most powerful form of identity formation, but just as powerful is violence. how do you know who is us into his them? youou fight alongside me, are us. if you fight against me, your them. far from religion and violence eating far apart and having nothing to do with each other, everyone knows that throughout history it has been much more alive than they would like it to be. "in-depth, yes on reza aslan.

in the months ahead, ron paul and on september 7, the former onir of the u.s. commission civil rights. this month we are discussing the forgot -- "the forgotten man." star reading or join others to discuss the book in our chat room. book tv, television for serious readers. >> rand paul spoke at the recent annual faith and freedom coalition conference. he spoke about term limits and religious prosecution. >> too often our culture seeks to separate faith and freedom.

without virtue, freedom needs virtue. voices seek to reassure us by saying that everything is ok. freedom needs virtue and virtue needs freedom. the soothing voices they seek to reassure us, saying everything is ok, everything is just fine, all as well, but all is not well. america is not just experiencing growing pains, it is in a full-blown spiritual crisis. america's challenge is not wolves at the door, but termites in the floor. our foundation is cracking. it is not that we have chosen the wrong politicians, although that is a debatable question. it is more fundamental than that. it requires a deeper introspection. we should pray for our country and our leaders. we need those prayers to face a

great challenge, a great challenge of our time. we have arrived at that day of reckoning. will we falter or will we thrive and rediscover our greatness? america has much greatness left in her. if we believe in ourselves and leave in our founding documents, if we believe in the system that is made as the richest, freest and most humanitarian nation ever. america will thrive when we realized that freedom requires faith to sustain it. guinness gets it right when he writes in his book that the only proper restraint to freedom is self-restraint. what does that mean? it means that those of us who love freedom must realize that freedom is not a license to do as you please, freedom can only be realized when citizens no self-restraint, or put another way, virtue. this parallels what george washington talked about when he said that democracy requires a

virtuous people. laws alone are not enough to civilize a nation. what america needs is not just another politician or more promises. what america needs is a revival. [applause] now that i've been to washington for a couple of years and i have seen what goes on up here, i have seen the belly of the beast, i can tell you without exaggeration that i have met the enemy and the enemy is too often us. the enemy is a bipartisan looting of the treasury, the bipartisan destruction of our currency, the bipartisan sprint away from a republic limited by a constitution. they passed thousand page bills that no one has read. republicans and democrats ignore their own rules to publish bills, to vote on them that haven't even been published in advance.

i say it must end. no bill should ever pass that is not been read. -- that has not been read. [applause] i have a proposal, i say make them wait one day for every 20 pages. that will keep them busy for a while. congress routinely passes laws that they exempt themselves from. i say congress should pass no law that exempts themselves. [applause] over time, many politicians become distant and distanced from their constituents, from doing real work, from knowing what it is like to work for paycheck, to do something of value. that is why i believe it is absolutely essential, and it is the right time for term limits.

to find our way back to the traditions of our founders, we need to understand how freedom and tradition are intertwined. don divine rights, freedom needs tradition for law, order and inspiration. but tradition needs freedom to escape stagnation, coercion and decline. the great achievement of the constitution's framers was in providing a means for synthesizing freedom and tradition. america needs to revive tradition, or america needs to revive virtue. or as billy graham might say, america needs to revive the hope that springs eternal from the transcended teachings of a

humble carpenter. government can supply bread, but it can't mend a broken spirit. mother theresa was once raised for social work in india. we are not -- she said we are not social workers, we do this for jesus. no government social worker can claim the same motivation. citizenship and good government required the involvement of a virtuous people. your faith and church are and should be part of the public arena. don't let anyone tell you otherwise. reject any politician who claims that faith can't be part of a public life. as my friend ralph reed likes to say, the first amendment is not about keeping religious people out of government, is about keeping government out of religion. [applause] some people think you have to choose one thing or the other, either liberty or virtue. i think they've got it wrong areas liberty is absolutely essential to virtue. it is our freedom to make individual choices that allows us to be virtuous. it does mean that government

cannot or should not reflect our values, in fact, it must. some seek to separate religious liberty from economic liberty. some seek to say our values have no place in public policy. that is not the way it should be. hobby lobby is owned by a christian family. the government is time to force him to buy insurance a cover something that they find morally objectionable. the lawyer describes the situation. he says obamacare forces us to abandon our faith to stay in business or abandon our business to stay true to our faith. that is wrong. no government should force anyone to choose between their faith and pursuing their livelihood [applause] [applause] . reagan understood the unity of this message when he wrote, we do not have a separate social agenda, a separate economic agenda and a separate foreign

agenda, we have one agenda. just as surely as we seek to put our financial house in order, rebuild our nation's defenses, so to we seek to protect the unborn, two and the manipulation of schoolchildren by utopian -- and admit an acknowledgment of a supreme being in our classrooms. [applause] another way we as christians should stand up to the current status quo is in foreign policy. reagan said the record of history is clear. citizens of the u.s. resort to force reluctantly and only when we must. eisenhower, the great general, expressed it similarly. he said our foreign policy is not difficult to state. we are for peace first, last and always. reagan believed in strength, but

he also believed in peace. he wrote: as for the enemies of freedom, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the american people are reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will. when action is required to reserve our national security, we will act. reagan spoke often of peace through strength. i fear that some in our nation and some in our party have forgotten the first part of the sentence, that peace should be our goal, even as we build our strength. some in my party have distorted his believe in peace through strength into a misguided believe that we should project strength through war. even when we have tried through good intentions to make the world better place, our actions have often backfired. jesus reminds us what our goals should be when he proclaims blessed are the peacemakers, for

they shall be called the children of god. this does not mean we won't defend ourselves, if attacked, it is our duty to defend our family and country and freedom. during the iraq war, think of what happened. one quarter of a million iraqi christians let iraq. they feared the shiite government that is there now, that we helped put in place after saddam. he fled in droves, but hundreds of thousands. where did they go? they headed mostly for syria, joining over one million syrians who have lived since christian -- who have lived as christian since the time of christ. now, president obama is arming

islamic rebels in syria. the vast majority of christians in syria are on the opposite side of the war. we are arming islamic rebels that are intent on killing christians. one recent massacre stands out from others. in 2013, islamic marauders invaded the little town of melilla, an ancient city were they still speak aramaic, the language that jesus spoke. as you -- as islamic rebels swarmed into town, they demand that everyone convert to islam or die. a brave young man stood up and answered them and said i am a christian and if you must kill me, do it. those were his last words. elsewhere in syria, islamic rebels have filmed beheadings of their captives. to christian bishops have been kidnapped in one priest killed. there is an irony that is

impossible to escape. our tax dollars are funding islamic rebels who are killing christians. he will say oh, we are supporting moderate rebels. i defy them to tell me they can tell the certainty who they are giving weapons to. in pakistan, it him and sits on -- a woman sits on death row because she is a christian. she is a christian. she has been there five years. in iran, a man suffers in prison because he is a christian. american tax dollars are often flowing to countries that are doing this. pakistan has gotten billions of dollars while persecuting christians. there is a war on christianity going on and sometimes you are being asked to pay for it. i say not one penny to any country that persecutes christians.

[applause] recently, we discovered that islamic rebels the present obama's arming have been provided with antitank weapons. they made an announcement two weeks ago that they are now intent on attacking israel with assad. you're saying they're going after the golan heights in israel is on the target list and we have given them sophisticated antitank weapons. these are the moderate rebels you are giving weapons to? in country after country, mobs burned the american flag and chant death to america. congress's response? sent more money to haters of christianity.

they say we are broke and need money. maybe americans will give us money. two they renounce anything they say? they are not renouncing one iota of what they stand for. your money is going to hamas soon. i say not one penny to nations that led violence to israel. [applause] it is time to stop this madness. we need to re-examine our foreign policy, halt this aid to islamic rebels in egypt and elsewhere and take a good long hard look at what our foreign policy has done. back here at home, we have a war being waged. it takes over a million lives each year. it is a war against the unborn. this must end. and pope john paul ii spoke about a culture of death, he talked about a war of the powerful against the week. as christians, we know we must always stand with the most defenseless. i believe that no nation, no civilization, can long endure that does not respect life from those that are not yet born to

life's last breath. [applause] to protect life, i have introduced in the senate a federal conception act. these days, christians are often unified in our defense of life, but too many are still not taking action or voting their beliefs. we must change this. last year, i stood in the garden of gethsemane. as we stood there, awed, we sang how great thou art. it was a great experience and i will never forget it. when our message bursts forth with the passage -- with the passion of patrick henry, full of compassion, full of enduring truth, then and only then will freedom reign. [applause] when i was home recently, i was going through some old letters that my great great grandmother had written about the turn of the last century.

i would like to close with a blessing that my great grandmother wrote to her son in 1903 when he was away working a few hours away in youngstown, ohio. she wrote to him, and said our sabbath was lovely, which i spent at home as usual. the jury lord willing, i hope i can go back to his house again. anyway, his grace is sufficient for me. there's a song in my soul today, a blessed sunshine that no circumstances can take away. the lord is a son and a shield to all the trust in him. may he always be your guide. thank you, and god bless america. [applause] ♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

>> also at the faith and freedom coalition conference, wisconsin senator ron johnson, who talked about the nation's cultural problems. his comments are about 15 minutes. [applause] >> well, good morning. kind you, mitch, for that introduction. thank you, ralph reed, for your years and tireless efforts in promoting faith and freedom and thank you all for being involved in this truly important effort. i have looked to your speakers and you have a star-studded cast of people you will be hearing from over the lat -- next couple of days. i realize i am new on the scene and not that will known, but let me introduce myself to you. ever seen a picture of hillary clinton with arms like this? green blazer, black glasses, saying something like what difference does it make you? i am the guy she was glaring at.

[applause] obviously it does make a difference when the american evil do not have the confidence that their administration will tell them the truth. i am a business guy, no politician. i consider myself a citizen legislator. my education background is an accounting and manufacturing. let's face it, we have enormous financial problems. i am comfortable with numbers. i may throw a few of them in here today. i am also pretty experienced with problem-solving and i just want to kind of go through exactly how you solve problems. we have a lot of them to deal with in this country. all, as a manufacturer it just kind of gets in your dna to go through a root cause analysis. but you are far better off addressing the root causes that take care of themselves.

if you want to take a look at what is really happening in this nation, certainly my theory is that the root cause of our financial and cultural problems, size, scope, the all the rules, the regulation, the government intrusion into our lives and the resulting cost in debt to government. the problem. washington, d.c. causes more problems than it solves. we need to make sure that americans understand that. [applause] now, there is a real process that you go through to solve problem. a pretty organize process. i think you have all seen the 12 step problem-solving process. what is the first step in solving a problem? you have to admit you have one, right? unfortunately, as human beings too often we have to hit rock bottom. let's hope that as a nation we don't have to hit rock bottom before we start solving the problem.

the second step is to properly define it. in terms of admitting that we have a problem, i would argue that our nation and leadership in washington are not fessing up to the fact that we have a problem. anytime time you hear a politician lie to the american people and say something like social security is solvent to the year 2033, it is unfortunately not. the social security trust fund is a fiction. is that am with that u.s. government bond in the hands of the federal government has no value. it is the same thing as if you had $20, spent it -- by the way, the money is long gone, take out a piece of paper, write $20 on it, stuff it in your pocket and say that you have 20 bucks. no, you don't, you have a piece of paper that you have to offer is a promissory note. but that is the exact same analogy of what the trust fund is.

it is an asset to the trust fund to theoff-site liability treasury. unfortunately, politicians from both rds have repeatedly lied to the american public and have not admitted that we have that problem. you know, medicare? when has president ever talked about medicare ash and mark it just needs modest reforms? let me give you some numbers. social security has no value. over the next 30 years -- that is the relevant problem window here. we have a 30 year demographic problem. the baby boom generation is retiring. we made all these promises and don't have the capacity to keep paying for them. we will have these enormous debt over the -- the next 30 years. social security will pay out if dean dollar trillion more in benefits than the payroll tax. medicare, about $35 trillion. we are not owning up to the

problem. now, i don't want to depress you too bad, it is pretty early in the morning. there are actually solutions that dart and end with information and neck à la growth . i don't think it is all that complicated, what we need to do to achieve economic growth and prosperity. the overall goal, we have to make america an attractive place for risk-taking, business investment, job creation and expansion. how do you do that? you had better have a competitive tax environment. right now, we don't. if you are a global manufacturer -- we are still the world's largest market with relatively cheap energy prices. are you going to set your plans in toronto at 15%? or detroit at 35%? going to subject yourself to a 1.8 dollar trillion

regulatory burden? way too many companies are making the rational decision. what is even worse, american this -- american companies are making the rational decision to move offshore. this is not rocket science. it is not that difficult. we have to focus on how we make america an attractive place for business investment. being that simple, why are we not doing it? well, we have a number of challenges. first of all, in opposition we have people on the other side of the aisle who are not interested in solving that problem. they are far more interested in the acquisition of power. they have been pretty good at it. beeneft's strategy has diabolically simple and depressingly effective. simply this, a day the americans to government. they have been doing it for decades. trust me, being here in washington i understand how early addicted americans are.

it is not just financial dependence or addiction, it is psychological. far too many americans are looking to the federal theirment to solve problems. this organization understands the problem will not be solved in washington, d.c. or by the federal government. the solution lies much closer to home. it relies and strengthen families, individual liberties, renewed faith. that is where the solutions will be found, in our communities, state, not the federal government. [applause] now, as conservatives we have a real opportunity here. i have seen the opinion polls. 10% approval rating of congress? first of all, that is too high and it tells us that 90% of americans are disgusted with the federal government. that is an opportunity for conservatives. one of my messages in wisconsin

has been to believe what your eyes and ears tell you. washington, d.c. is dysfunctional and a broken. ask yourself a series of questions. do you really want to continue to grow the federal government? do you want the intrusive influence on your life to increase? the federal government taking care of your health care system? in thoseolved intimate, awful, often times life and death decisions? is a monumentally bad idea. we have got to convince more americans of this. we have got to talk to them about what they really believe and see in terms of their eyes and ears and how they are voting. aretoo many americans electing government officials dedicating to -- dedicated to growing this place, which makes no sense whatsoever. goals are pretty simple. economic growth, make america an

attractive place. i really do think that at the heart of it, all americans share the same goal. we all want a prosperous america. i'm concerned about every american. quite honestly, i am short our friends on the left are. now, we certainly have different ideas on how to provide the prosperity. how to provide opportunity for every american to build a good life for themselves and their family. that is not a bad way to start the conversation. thesestart grappling with problems, let's not question the motives, let's start providing information to americans so that we can start solving those problems and going through the problem-solving technique. now, i was in afghanistan a few months after i was sworn in. we were at the training mission. we had an interpreter. i was able to go onto any recruit that i could.

i went up to this one relatively young man -- hard to say how old . my guess is that he was in his 30's. i asked him, why did you volunteer? his answer was pretty simple, pretty powerful. nation.ng it for my we want peace." i think that we all want peace. we all want us parity. you, first to say to of all, is thank you for being involved in this movement. we need every american to be informed, spread the word. to understand that it really is in her new faith and strength in families and strength in communities, that is where the solution lies. you know, james madison said that the invent -- said that the advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty. that if aferson said

nation expects to be ignorant of free, the state civilization, it expects what never was or never will be. solution really doesn't start and end with information. with an informed and moral population. the education system is not on our side. they will not promote freedom and faith in a free-market competitive system. our news media is not on our side. our entertainment media is not on our side. , theleaves it up to us faith community, the business community, the small slice right now of the american population that understands the harm the federal government does to their ability to try and provide good paying jobs for middle income americans. again, what i'm asking you to do is get informed, talk to your

friends, your family come your neighbors, talk to anybody, perfect strangers about how wonderful this nation is, how we truly are the greatest nation in the history of mankind. god bless your efforts and god bless america, thank you. [applause] host: caller: [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> peter? >> for over 35 years, c-span brings public affairs events from washington to you. and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house all as a public service of private industry .>> we are c-span, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. watches in hd, like a son facebook and follow us on twitter. >> on capitol hill today, both chambers of congress are in. the house gavels in a noon

eastern for general speeches and legislative business starts at 2:00 with seven bills and votes at 6:30 p.m. after votes, they will debate a bill to reauthorize the commodity futures trading commission through 2018. the senate is in a 2:00 for general speeches and at 5:30 p.m., votes on for district judge nominations. you can watch the house library here on c-span and the senate live on c-span two. what are your ideas for fixing congress? that's our question on our facebook page. you can reply and share your thoughts on facebook.com/c-span. president obama is holding the white house working family summit today bringing attention to issues like paid leave and flexibility in work hours print

he is scheduled to speak at 1:40 p.m. eastern time live on our companion network c-span3. missouri senator claire mccaskill holds the latest in a series of discussions about assault on college campuses, sexual assault. c-span3 will have live coverage starting at 2:30 p.m. eastern and you can comment during the series on our facebook and twitter pages. former white house press secretary jay carney says the health care.ogv p website was the most difficulteriod for him in the white house. he spoke at the christian science monitor series about his time in the white house. as is about one hour.

[no audio] >> peter? we've got a space. come on, brother. you can be on tv with me. thank you for coming. i'm just this morning is jay carney, president obama's departing press secretary and we are delighted to have him as a guest on the day he is traversing the polar extremes of the media world starting with the monitor breakfast and moving to new york for the "colbert report." he's the 12th secretary to share a high cholesterol breakfast with us. he has degrees in russian and european studies.

his 21-year career in journalism began with the miami herald. he moved to time magazine and was with the moscow bureau and in 1993 came to washington where he was reporter, deputy chief, and bureau chief at which point he left to become vice president biden's communications director. he stepped in front of the podium in february 2011. whatever his new job, a says he will have more time for his wife. now on to the ever popular process portion of the program. as always, we are on the record. no means of filing of any time while the breakfast is underway to give us time to listen to

what our guests as. there is no embargo when it ends. do the traditional thing and send me a subtle nonthreatening signal, the always open to interpretation finger wave or what have you. we will start by offering our guests the opportunity to make some opening comments and then move around the table. thanks again for doing this. >> thank you, dave. i appreciated. thanks, everyone, for being here. i've had a couple of opportunities now in the briefing room both when the president announced my departure and then yesterday to say a few things about the experience that i've had and how gratifying and rewarding it's been, how humbling, and how much i appreciate this process, whether it is here or in the briefing room.

people constantly say when you have this job, and i'm sure it was true for my predecessors, but you have the hardest job or one of the hardest jobs. as my colleagues know on the staff at the white house, and i think many of you know, especially if you are in the regular press corps, i really enjoyed it. i found the briefing interactions and even the contentious ones to be stimulating and at times frustrating but in a way that i would not trade. there are things about the briefing, obviously, that could be improved. overall, i think it's been a great thing for me. i've done the best i could do serve both the president, the

white house, the administration, the country, and also to be as informative as i could be about what the president, the white house, the administration, and the government are doing. the earliest, best advice i had about the job was to never guess. if you did not know the answer, the surest way to get into trouble was to assume and say that from the podium. i try to take my own advice not always but mostly. another thing i think that i learned is the white house has become, both in fact and in the way it's covered -- no, thank you -- the center of the universe in washington and the country. that has meant that press secretaries have to have an

answer for everything. often it is the case that the best ways to go for information, especially some of the more detailed information as to agencies, congress, elsewhere. while it's true press secretaries indulge in the phrase, "i refer you to the department of whatever" in order to deflect some of the questioning elsewhere, it's also frequently true that a lot of the important work and policy development, implementation that happens is in the agencies. the spotlight is on the white house, but that's not the only game in town. i guess we should just go to questions. it's early for me to be speaking. [laughter] if you have a long-winded

question, please raise your hand. [laughter] >> i am on my ceremonial soapbox. you told charlie rose that a good white house reporter know 15% or 20% of what's going on. they can carefully extrapolate a little beyond that. looking back on your experience, does the area of press ignorance follow a pattern? intel or is the ignorance random? >> i tried to explain that it did not mean this as a hit on reporters or the suggestion that they were ignorant or that this was the result of secretiveness. he goes back to what i was just talking about. the amount of traffic through the white house is immense.

the number of issues people are working on on any given day is very broad, very deep. reporters who cover the white house on a daily basis, in particular, tend to because of the demand of news and their outlet focus on the top one or two topics of the day and are kind of unaware of and don't have the capacity to become aware of so much else that is happening. one of the things that was initially and continues to be really fascinating to me about the experience of working in the white house is just how the train never stops. we've seen this just in terms of the number of issues that have demanded our attention, your attention, dominated the news only to be replaced by an issue

that has garnered equally intensive attention. that's really what i meant. we talked about that line, charlie and i, but it was based on a conversation i had won a first came to washington from my friend and mentor, michael duffy, when he told me as i was young reporter covering the white house that really we only know -- i cannot remember if he said this team, 20, 30% so i don't want to pin this on them entirely, but then we have to figure it out or extrapolated from there and i think it's a fair point. what i think is true and has become more so over the years i've been in washington, both as a reporter and in the white house is that the demand for instant information and revelation in the covering of

the white house and washington coupled with the strain on resources that so many news organizations have been feeling has resulted in an exacerbation of this issue where there just is not the bandwidth in the organization to cover the agencies or congress with the depth they used to and there is a tendency to just throw folks out the white house and have them chase whatever the story of the day is which can be, i think, frustrating for white house correspondents and certainly, on occasion, for those who work there. >> you told major garrett in a presentation you did george washington that after you have been selected as white house press secretary, before you moved to the podium that you went through mock briefings where robert gives "knew from personal experience just the right kind of question that would completely unsettle me." now that you're leaving, can you

give us a kind of example of what the question would he? >> the risk that any press secretary in the modern age where everything is televised faces is to be forced by a question to lose your composure. sometimes that is because of a gotcha question or sometimes it is just a difficult and penetrating question. it took me a while to figure this out. you can often win the exchange from the podium. you have the higher ground. you have the capacity to: somebody else. -- to call on somebody else. then when you review the tape, it's pretty clear that you took the bait and let yourself be less than 100% on your game.

with also true, to only people who sit in the remand suffer through the briefing and a handful of folks who have nothing better to do than watch the whole thing, experience it that way. most people just see a snippet. they often do not see the interplay between the questioner and the press secretary. they just see what i say and you have to keep that in mind when you are up there. robert was great having had done it at provoking me into the kind of exchange i found out i wanted to avoid but did not always. [laughter] >> sam. >> me? thank you. what was the toughest point as a press secretary for you in this gig?

what was the best point for you in this gig? what was the most memorable? as press secretary. >> newton, connecticut, was emotionally low for a lot of parents in here. it was just unimaginably bad for everyone. and separating it from that, i would say the most difficult period since i've been press secretary was dealing with healthcare.gov and it's pretty awful rollout and that was because, in contrast to some of the other issues that became challenging at the podium and challenging for us in the press,

this one was completely of our doing, completely our responsibility, was obviously a major legislative accomplishment of the president. we had really not gotten it right. i think that made everyone feel from the president on down a great deal of responsibility. it made a lot of us worry about what would happen if we could not fix it in terms of the goal of expanding the availability of health insurance to millions of americans. obviously it was a concern politically if it did not work out. in contrast to a lot of these sort of issues that burn brightly but for now, this was a sustained bad news story. i remember that as being the biggest challenge. and in some ways, because it is more recent than some of the

other issues, in many ways it's one of the best moments also. as we gradually became confident that the website was going to be fixed, as we became aware gradually that revising down expectations of what the numbers would be were too low when they were going to get better -- revising down expectations of what the numbers would be and when we hit one million, that was a good day. what distinguishes that is unlike a lot of things the president and the white house has to deal with and some of the toughest moments often started at least by events not in your control, this was on us. i know the president felt that responsibility deeply and others who worked on it felt it deeply and we are all indebted to the team that went in there and figured it out, got it right.

>> alexis. >> he's mixing it up going to the back row. >> alexis was often my go to. [laughter] >> several former presidential press secretary's say they don't know why the gavel does not still exist in think it should be resurrected. do you think there is value in trying to do the morning gavel? i'm not trigger but he remembers the cameras were put into the briefing room not that long ago, during the bush administration for the inside of the white house to be paying attention, you call out the names in the transcript so it's clear who asked the question. can you tell us about how the breaking is carved up inside the white house and used by the staff and how the president absorbs anything that's been asked?

>> after the fact? >> after, yes. >> let me answer the gavel question. it is a great idea. what i found, and i think robert found before me, is that it's very challenging to try to do at the gaggle and a briefing in the same day if you also want to be in the room during team meeting see you can stand at the podium and represent what's happening on the inside. what i found early on is my day starts with the first meeting in the chief of staff's office pending if it's 7:30 a.m. or 7:45 a.m. i have five meetings before then and 10:00 or 10:30 a.m. if we were to do a morning gaggle, that would require more

prep and time, then i would miss most or at least some of those meetings and those are key. i found i was more prepared and more comfortable trying to answer questions authoritatively if i was in the room and i heard the discussion and they understood and participated in exactly what was happening. what i think would be a good idea, and this will not be universally welcomed, is to alternate between off-camera and on camera briefings. it's very hard to do both, especially now. what robert found out is the old days, like when i started in the early clinton years there were a handful of people who would come to the press secretary's office for the gaggle, that does not work. robert found he had to move it

to allow for all the people who had to be there and you had to take it out of the office into the briefing room. then people wanted to turn on the cameras and you get in this cycle where it was just going to be another briefing. it did not have the kind of informal value it had had in the past. this is something that i urge my successor and sick -- successors to consider. i found that the gaggle's i've done on air force one were just as substantive and a lot less theatrical than the on camera briefings. as you know, because you were around, mike mccurdy apologize for being the press secretary who agreed that the entirety of the briefing be on camera. i know why people wanted that. i certainly don't expect it would be reversed.

it creates a different dynamic. there would be some value, i think, and having more of those off-camera gaggles. after a briefing, my team depending on what else is going on in the nature of the briefing, we sort of dissected quickly and assess where there any things we needed to get back to people on, anything where a messed up and we needed to correct -- that almost never happens. [laughter] the teams who represent different areas of policy would make sure that folks off they needed to what we were saying about things either in the policy councils are out in the agencies. in the modern communication world, this all becomes

available so there was not a formal way or a more regular way of disseminating it. if there was a flag or some issue somebody needed to know about, it would move around pretty quickly. as i said, truthfully over the years, the president does not watch a lot of tv during the day and does not really ever watch any news tv. he might hear about it from somebody else if there was an interesting exchange or read it later at night and i would hear from him if he had a comment. it's usually at night. >> michael. >> i'm assuming you've got to know him well personally. i'm kind of curious why publicly he seems aloof sometimes, unlikable. what's your view on why that public image persists?

>> i would argue that it doesn't, when you say that broadly. the first president in more than your lifetime to be elected twice with more than 50% of the vote. you have to be pretty likable to have that happen. i think there are two things that i can say about that perception that some have. one of the very compelling and distinct things about barack obama is he was not on the national stage until fairly shortly before he was elected president. what that means is he was, in ways that his predecessors were not, a fully formed person before people were looking at him as a potential president. he was not a creature of washington.

he did not spend much time here. he was a senator only for a few years before elected and that also contributes to how he is as a person compared to a lot of people who run for the office. you can argue there are downsides to that. there are downsides to being a creature of washington and having those relationships, to be sure. when he took office, president obama, i would argue, was a lot more unlike and in touch with the experiences of non-washington people than the usual occupant of the office. the other part -- a lot of this has been written and said well -- he's not an individual person

or politician who is reactive to the emotions in the sort of swings of everyday politics in washington. there are upsides and downsides. i would argue the outbound ways the down because it means -- the up outweighs the downs. he looks at issues and challenges with a night to the horizon as opposed to winning the day. when you are on his columns team -- comms team your urging him to do something and he does not do it that way. more often than not, he's been right in that decision. on a personal side, i've said this before, it's a great thing about this country and it says so much that one reason i found it so easy to work with him and have developed a relationship with him is that we are not unalike, which is pretty amazing.

he's three and a half years older than im, has kids a little older than mine. temperamentally, i felt a lot in common with him. i would also say one of the myths, i think i mentioned this somewhere, maybe charlie rose, when you are president of the united states and you have that they playing, there is a bedroom that's really nice and an office that's really big on the plane. if you want to be alone, you can spend all your time in those spaces. this president in the miles i traveled with him, which were many, never spent any time in those rooms. he's in the conference room with people around him all the time engaged in conversations, watching sports, reading briefing books, playing cards. i think that reflects his nature.

>> justin. >> i have a personal and maybe a follow-up. >> what's the question? >> i wanted to ask about russia. i know you said you are not interested in the ambassador job, but there seems about -- >> my wife is not interested. [laughter] >> there are a lot of people who suggested that at some point you are interested in that job or had conversations about it. i wanted to ask if that was something you ever discussed with people or the president even though it has not come to fruition. >> the truth is there were some folks -- not the president -- who looking at my record, my

interests, my background thought it would be a great idea. there was some story that said i was lobbying for it. to the extent there were any discussions, i was lobbying against it, not that it was ever a real thing. there's a certain romantic circularity to it. if i were ever able to do something like that, but it's not something i ever expressed any real interest in. so there's that. because of my seminal experience as a reporter is in the soviet union, being in what was then leningrad with me democratizing mayor and being vaguely aware that this lieutenant of his,

vladimir putin, was also on his team and having him now be who he is, that will always be interesting to me but not in service of the government. >> we will go next to peter, and julie, ryan, neil. >> you've learned a lot about media that you got to see from the point of view. as you mentioned, reporters probably get 15% of what's going on. after 20 years of doing this, what surprised you most about how it works inside the white house that reporters don't got? -- don't get? >> right.

what surprised me -- i think what is surprising is how human the enterprise is, how small the rooms are. how, in the end, very weighty decisions are made in a very human way. i think there's a tendency when you cover a white house, the tendency i had, to make assumptions about control, process, and intent but did not

account for the fact that in the end a lot of these issues have to be decided, and this is true of any white house of either party, by a handful of people dealing with the best collection of fact they might be able to get but invariably an incomplete election. -- collection in a very challenging environment usually. you don't have the luxury when it gets to that room where the president is making the decision among the menu of options seeing the one that says you get everything you want just as you would have it be. the other side of that, and i would assume this has been true for mike houses of both parties, is that the people in that room are trying to do the right thing as they see it.

i was very encouraged by what i saw from the very beginning as people dealing with -- with the economic collapse and through this day with a tough issues in trying to get it right and the way they thought best serve the country and its people. that sounds a little mushy but it is encouraging. i think there is a tendency, and i succumbed to it, to be very cynical about the decision-making process, very cynical about what the reasoning behind anything that a white house does is. as a tendency to assume that politics and political considerations drive every

decision. i'm here to tell you that's definitely not the case. as someone on the communications political side, it would have been a lot more convenient had it been the case, but it's just not. for the country, i think that's a good thing. >> was there ever a time you felt tension between 21 years of trying to be a truth teller, in effect, and five years now as mccurdy once said telling the truth slowly or finding ways of telling the truth that presented the best possible version of the truth but in maybe not what you would have written had you been a time magazine reporter? >> i benefited a lot spending the first two years in the white house as the vice president communication director in essentially, a behind-the-scenes job. there's only one podium job at the white house.

i would not have been nearly as ready to take the podium if someone had suggested i do it right out of being a reporter because i think there's a lot you need to learn about how a white house works and how the policy process works and how decisions are made about the ways that you explain and describe policy decisions that i was able to learn in two years. you and i have talked about this. i was shocked to find out how the expertise i thought i had developed as a political reporter about communication strategies and white house communications was not really expertise and there was a lot to learn. i learned a lot thanks to others in the vp office, axelrod, gibbs, others on the president's team. to go to the other part of your

question -- you know, i was talking to someone yesterday about this. i tried very hard. i was not a traditional old-school reporter in that i was not an advocate i did not take sides in my reporting. i did not feel like i had a straitjacket but on me. i felt liberated. that only works if you actually believe in and agree with the policies you are advocating. i certainly did. but the problem for people not only in this job at other jobs in a white house or administration. you take a job because it's a good career move but you don't agree with what you're doing? that's a risky proposition especially if you're having to articulate and speak about it publicly. there are strongly differing

views inside the policy process. those are expressed and the president and vice president insist on that. you obviously know a lot more about what's going on when you are a press secretary. i understand what mike was saying when he said you tell the truth slowly. you only do this job successfully if you tell the truth. i know he did the that -- he did that and i did. >> the media landscape has changed more dramatically from the time you've been in the white house than any previous time. i'm wondering if you could walk us through how to change is not the communication strategy per se but policymaking, the idea that you not only have news popping all the time but there could be a single tweet about starts changing the conversation.

when i talk to those who serve in multiple administrations, they talk about how the policy teams operate particularly in crisis situations, domestic or international, is somewhat different given the media pressures. >> i will take a couple of wax at that. -- whacks at that. it's totally different. it's a different job and a different atmosphere from what it was when i first came in first term clinton and even from the bush years. i covered the first term of president george w. bush. so much of what media drives the discussion did not even exist then and there is no question in the public-facing parts of the

white house that creates a totally different dynamic. mostly it's about trying to assess very quickly, because the cycles demand it, whether or not we need to chase that ball down the field or if she would take a step back to wait and see where something is going that's popping on twitter or elsewhere. there is the great push among some to follow something and respond instantly and aggressively. what you find is that there is some wisdom in being discerning about doing that. twitter and social media have created an environment where new news grabs people attention much more quickly than it used to.

the fires burn brighter but they burn out faster. there is wisdom and valor in waiting sometimes to see whether and how quickly you need to react. in the policy world, there are numerous ways this has a profound effect, just this bead with which a very important information guest policy especially in the foreign-policy world where you have the impact of social media in the arab spring and elsewhere. i think it also effects the way domestic policy has developed, too, but the way i've seen it, at least, to have the most profound effect is in generally a good way, the rapidity with which policymakers, journalists,

and everyone else get information from some areas of the world where it was never is easily available as it is now. >> miles. >> i'm wondering if you can tell us whether you sat in on any meetings during your tenure in which constitutional amendments were discussed and whether, with your own experience, the climate of politics now in the changes that we've seen, the difficulties that governing is encountering. are there any kind of constitutional amendments that you yourself would imagine a big improvement in the way things get done? >> i've certainly been in a lot of meetings where policy has been discussed. we made clear the president's views around the campaign finance issue and the

possibility that an amendment is the only way to address some of what we've seen in the wake of citizens united. that's the only one that comes to mind when it comes to a constitutional amendment. >> you don't have any thoughts beyond that? >> i have not really thought about it in terms of an amendment to the constitution. a lot of experts on electoral politics have noted that we have a real issue, i think, when it comes to the way the district are drawn in congress and the impact it has in creating ever more polarized politics here. i think i would associate myself with the prevailing wisdom that addressing that issue would

probably be an official to the body politic. i'm not sure that requires a constitutional amendment, but it certainly would not be a bad idea. >> ryan. >> you said earlier the best pieces of advice you got were not to guess. what's the best piece of advice you have passed along to josh? how do you think his experience being in the briefing room for so long might help him in a way that perhaps you did not have going in? >> i said yesterday, and i absolutely believe it, that there has never been anyone as ready to take over the job as josh is now. that's because he's been a deputy press secretary from the beginning of this white house and in my nearly three and a half years he's been the principal deputy. if i need to go do a teacher conference, baseball game, kids

play, i have asked josh to fill in for me at the podium a fair number of times during this time. there was nothing like that experience, i can tell you. even the sessions i did with a handful of people in a room before i took the podium did not adequately simulate what the briefing is really like. josh has done that. i think it's different from answering questions on a tv show or just on the record in a conversation with a reporter. it's a unique experience and josh is ready for it. he's had it. i pass on some of the obvious advice to josh. he's not going out for the first time. i've told him what i've learned and i think he's demonstrated

that he's absorbed whatever good advice i've given them. i think what i would, however, and will tell josh going forward is that it's important internally, and this goes back to the question that alexis asked me, to listen carefully and those meetings you are participating in so that you hear from the president and others the parameters of the policy discussion. one of the wings so useful to me in being in meetings with the president when he was deliberating over policy decisions he had not made yet was the understanding of the universe of his thinking. that created beyond talking points or the lines as our first

answer to a question that gave me a sense of where i could go, but language i could use. i know i had a better sense of hearing him say it in those meetings what he might say if he were up there. i always felt a lot of comfort if i had heard the president himself talk about an issue even obviously if he was talking about it and he was still midstream in the decision-making process about whether you still had to protect but i was able to understand the way it was thinking about it and it gave me car -- more confidence that he was accurate in his thinking. when people talk about press secretary access and their role internally, that's the most important thing, you develop an ear for the way the president and other top policymakers think about things.

>> is obviously done briefings before. do you go back and watch the game tape? >> in prep before everything, health care, national security, education, talk to me about what's new in some of those areas, what's new overnight. sometimes at the end of that process, if there is a particularly contentious issue or one where precision is important especially in foreign policy, we will do a quick back-and-forth just in my office. i don't expect josh will be doing any formal mocks. he does not need them. >> you talked about wanting to bring back an off-camera gaggle. what are the different ways you are building the press operation

from the ground up in a fantasy world? what it would look like if it was not all about -- the tradition and inertial forces? >> the reference to the blackberry is about anachronisms? [laughter] i've got about 36 more hours with this baby. [laughter] it's a great question. i think there are a lot of institutional constraints on the way the press office operates and interact with the press corps. there is inertia on both sides to any attempt to change any of those constraints. talking about doing away with the briefing because it's become so much of a theater performance.

i think that there probably is away, and we were talking about this earlier, to drain some of that out. having a situation in an everyday basis, a spokesman from the white house is out there answering questions. it could be that you do that in an off-camera gaggle in the press secretary is available at different points of the day to do quick interviews. maybe that's the way to do it. i don't know. i think there is some dissatisfaction on all sides with the way that the briefing has evolved. we've done a lot within those constraints to change on the broader communications side what

we do to modernize, take advantage of media development in social media. i know that has also caused some tension and i understand that. i also think that it would be malpractice for anyone in our positions not to take advantage of social media. i know that our successors will in ways that we cannot even imagine. i've always believed that. peter, in some ways this goes back a little bit to your question in the whole thing about what percentage of wings, -- of things what percentage of what's going on, what reporters know. there are really good ones, and a lot of you in this room don't rely just on the briefings or the press releases for your stories. i guess we wish you would --

[laughter] when i was a reporter, the best ones certainly didn't and they do not today. it's just part of the information you get as you piece together your understanding of what's going on. >> we have about two minutes left. >> deuce around the uncomfortable truth with a blizzard of uncomfortable facts, but where there e-mails between lois lerner and other members of the irs who could have been involved in some sort of conversation. did you know about those e-mails and did you like? >> the answer is no. >> did you lie? >> honestly, it's not because

i'm a paragon of virtue. that would be a terrible way to do the job. what you do when you cannot say is you don't. you take the question or you explain without revealing what you cannot say because these are internal deliberations or national security issues. on the other question, what the irs is dealing with the terms and, i don't know all the details about what the next things are. i addressed e-mails from lois lerner yesterday and i would just refer you to them for what else they are doing on that issue. >> this will be the last last question. you understand the concept. >> and asking you are leaving with the midterms coming and

there will be more of a struggle to get media attention than the white house has had in the previous year. what kind of advice would you give josh about that? how would you expect the operation to change given that? >> that's a great question. there are upsides potentially to the fact that, as i did, most of you get excited about elections and the intensity of coverage shifts, especially the presidential beginning immediately after the midterms. i think there's an opportunity to continue to focus on what the white house focuses on which is getting as much done as he can in the time that he has. in terms of governance. and using every tool he has to make that happen. congress has not been particularly cooperative or bipartisan in efforts to move

the president's agenda. which is an agenda shared by the majority of the american people. but that doesn't mean he cannot do a lot of important things and i think we have seen that this year. it does not mean that there are not any opportunities for getting significant legislation passed through congress. not because republicans will suddenly decide that they want to do president obama a favor, but because they will see it in their interest to compromise on some of these issues that are actually good for the economy and good for them politically, immigration reform being one of them. broader, how do you get people to pay attention to what you are doing, there is an upside to having maybe not as much of that attention.

but i think this would be true of any white house. there is the preoccupation with electoral politics in washington that is not shared outside of washington, certainly not this far out. and what you have seen us do with the president is come up with as many ways as we can find to have him seen and heard talk about what he believes by americans who are not tuning in to political shows. or even a look at the newspaper, they are not reading those stories first if at all. they are looking at other things. again, that is sometimes what we

need but it is the right thing to do. most people, especially in this media landscape, they don't consume it the way we do here. but they do care deeply about their own economic future and the future of their country and there are ways to engage with them that we try to find an exploit and i'm sure our successors will go, too. >> people who want to ask questions, my apologies. we have run out of time. my thank you for coming and look forward to have you maybe around as a college. >> thank you very much. it has been a pleasure. >> are you going to cnn? >> i have absolutely made no decisions about what i am doing next beyond spending a lot more time with my kids. it is an amazing thing, after the resident visited my daughter's little league game, they did not lose another game and they were sort of middle of the pack and they won the championship on saturday.

but i look forward to spending time -- my son is 12. as parents with kids older than he is reminded me, it will not be that one before he is not that interested in hanging out with his dad so i am going to do that first. >> did you keep a journal for a book? >> i didn't, probably because of the volume that i talked about. i took notes to keep track of what was going on. we were talking about this earlier. my wife came out with a book and i lived that process twice with her. as anybody knows from personal experience, writing a book seems to me something that is very demanding. and i wrote for a living for 21 years. when i came to the vp office, i said i am not writing speeches because i found that really hard. i am looking to relax a little bit. writing is not what i am looking to do. >> thank you.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> a few missed any of the discussion with jay carney or some of the other news from the past week, including the news conference on the u.s. response orthe violence in iraq senate majority leader harry reid on the cancellation of the redskins football league trademark. find those stories and more on --th.com/c-span facebook.com/c-span. epasupreme court ruling the lacks authority in some cases to force companies to evaluate ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

affect the recent epa proposals for new and existing power plants. the u.s. house is about to gavel in. the first couple hours have been reserved for general speeches on any topic. legislative work against at 2:00, debating on bills begins later after 4:00. seven builds on the schedule for the midafternoon, mostly dealing with energy. they plan to vote on those 6:30. now to the floor of the u.s. house. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., june 23, 2014. i hereby appoint the honorable adrian smith to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner,